Never Ignore the Butterflies
by Flash-Indie
Summary: “Tell me I didn’t imagine you and me…there was something, wasn’t there? Something.” Taiora, in the space of a lifetime.


Never Ignore the Butterflies 

By Flash Indie.

All the usual disclaimers apply.

They were four when they met.

Red bangs fell in an unpleasant jumble over her pale face and her violently crimson eyes stared blankly at anything, everything. A perpetual scowl marred what was probably a rather pretty little girl.

He thought it was strange though, this angry, scruffy girl looking quite out of place in a frilly pink dress.

Grubby hands held loosely to a filthy soccer ball, as he stumbled over to where she sat spitefully in the sandbox.

"'m Tai." The boy stated, bowing dutifully with a quick nod of his head.

She stared up at him, eyes curious, mouth poised, "Takenouchi Sora."

Grinning widely, he held out his hand, "Y'know how to play soccer?"

"I'm not allowed to get dirty."

He shrugged, "You already are."

It was only a few days later that they realised they went to the same primary school. Lived in the same apartment block too, when to the same supermarket, played at the same park. Fate, they'd think later.

And quite suddenly, quite out of the blue, they'd become rather good friends. Through the good times and the bad.

She'd come over the night his sister had gotten sick. She'd watched as the little boy sobbed into his nightshirt. She'd prayed with him to whoever would listen that if Hikari was alright, if that tiny girl lived, that they'd both bath and brush their teeth every night. That they'd make their beds, do their homework and even give up soccer, if someone just let her live.

They kept their promises too, well, all except the one about soccer.

Her father left when she was eight. Tai came over, and waited in the hall when she locked herself in the bathroom. He waited with ear and breath and shoulder to cry on, and silently handed her tissue after tissue as she wept herself to sleep.

Together they'd gone to summer camp. It'd be great, he had told her, they'd go rafting and play soccer and set up tents. He'd never leave her side.

She'd rolled her eyes, and claimed he had more hair than brains. Boys and girls wouldn't be allowed to sleep in the same tents.

He'd stated that really, she wasn't much of a girl.

It was that year that they were summoned to the digital world. It was that year that everything changed, that _they_ changed.

After they'd saved the world, daily routine was dull and dumb.

They'd gained friends and tasted the bittersweet thrill of ongoing adrenaline and a fight to survive, and really it was an addictive thing.

But they were 13 now, with no way to get back to that adventure, and middle school was their life.

"I walked in on my cousin making out with his girlfriend." Tai stated, one sunny afternoon.

Sora had quirked a brow, leant over from where she lay sprawled on his bed, legs entangled with his. "Yea?"

"They looked like they were trying to eat each other's faces off."

Sora scrunched up her own face, mouth poised in something akin to disgust. "It looks pretty gross."

"Yea."

They didn't say anything about it for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring the static when their shoulders touched. But by six o'clock, he leant over, "Maybe we should give it a go."

"What?"

"Kissing. I mean, there's gotta be something good about it…if so many people would do it."

She shrugged, but you couldn't really ignore that logic. "I guess."

They both twisted in, hands reaching out for any contact, any touch. Lips connected briefly, and innocently, and the butterflies stampeded through Sora's stomach, nipping and violently battering against her insides. Her mouth, her face, her heart was aflame with something…with _this_. Whatever _this_ was. Fingers tingled violently as they wrapped around his back, and a grin against her mouth was all she needed to know that this…this was ok.

Breaking whatever that connection was, they gasped frantically for air.

They never spoke of it again.

When they started highschool, a girl in Sora's grade begged her to ask Tai out on her behalf.

Sora had choked and flushed, her stomach in flutters and her heart beating so fast it felt like it would burst from her chest.

"Why?"

"Well, he's _so_ handsome and funny and nice…don't you think?"

And really, what could she say to that?

The soccer team had gone out for a group dinner, getting to know their new teammates, their new coach. Sora was the only girl on the team.

The boys had laughed, and grinned and made immature gags about boobs and butts. Nothing was better, one of them said, than big tits in a bikini.

No, one of the others had said, a thin, pretty little housewife was the way to go. What more could a boy ask for then someone to cook and clean and snog every night.

Yes, Tai had said, that was the way to go. But what about the frilly dresses, the kimonos and the flowers in long locks of hair? It was all about the pretty, a cute little trinket on your arm.

Sora couldn't help but feel hopelessly inadequate, and left the restaurant with an unfamiliar, painful burn in her chest.

She was 15 when Yamato asked her out. Shocked, she'd stumbled over her words, 'but Mimi', 'but _me?_'

But he'd grinned, and said, "you."

They'd started dating quite contently, and Tai had watched from the sidelines, confused, flushed and inexplicably upset.

Yamato was kind and cool and proper, and it was only a matter of time before she gave up soccer for tennis, her job at the skate shop for one at her mother's flower shop. Tai for this new clique.

She'd never forget the first time they kissed, her and Yamato. He was warm and soft and sweet. His mouth tasted like strawberries and lemonade, and he was so gentle. He put his hand on her lower back, and the other on her hip and even though he tasted so nice and was a perfect gentleman, this was _boring_ and it wasn't her.

But she'd give it a go, she told herself. She'd make him cookies, and she'd wear those frilly dresses that she gave up eons a go, because this is what boys wanted, and she wondered if this was what Tai wanted too.

They didn't break up, her and Yamato, not till they were 24 anyway.

They had sex as a vain little hope that maybe the last nine years hadn't been a waste, maybe somewhere deep down there was a spark of something, _anything_.

She'd left before Yamato woke up, and ended up on Tai's doorstep.

It was three am, he had stated, rubbing sleep and pure exhaustion from his big brown eyes.

"Tell me I didn't imagine it." She said, tired and scared and lonely.

"What?"

"Tell me I didn't imagine you and me…there was something, wasn't there? _Something._"

He had sighed, leaning back on the doorframe. "There was something."

"So you…you felt it too."

"I did."

Sora stared at him, crimson eyes wide, "So, what happens now?"

"You go home, you go to bed, and then your forget this ever happened."

"Wh-what?"

His eyes are sad, and his face is vulnerable, "Sora, it's been eleven years since we kissed, and you…ever since Yamato…I don't know who you are anymore."

"I'm the same-"

"No. You're not, and neither am I."

"But…it was what you wanted…I did it for you! Like you said at the restaurant that night!"

"What? Sora, that was ages ago, I…I was trying to fit in because all I ever wanted was you, just you. But that…that died out a long time ago."

Right, she'd said as she folded her arms over her chest, afraid that if she wasn't careful, Tai would hear her heart breaking. A tell-tale shatter of a previously thriving muscle. Thriving for him, only him, but not now, not anymore.

She packed herself up, the image of repressed heartbreak. Hardly even processing a warm hand on her arm. But suddenly, heated lips were pressing brutally into her own.

That heat was back, the rush that filled her so completely and so aggressively spread through every cell of her body. That feeling that ate at her head, and pieced together the shattered remnants of her heart. That _something_, whatever it was, was back and filled her with a life she'd known around no other…only Tai, always Tai.

"Shit." He said, as they gasped for air, for some familiar stability. "I thought…I hoped that that feeling would be gone."

"Never."

He nodded, he grinned, and he pulled her into his apartment. They were nothing without each other.

* * *

Fin. 


End file.
